Britain’s Farm Animal Welfare Council believes that the traditional manner in which Jews slaughter cows just ain’t “kosher” and plans to make demands that the government require all animals to be stunned before they are slaughtered. The problem? Such a practice would render meat halachically non-Kosher.

[A previous report] recommended that the government “require that the Jewish and Muslim communities review their methods of slaughter so as to develop alternatives which permit effective stunning.”

While admitting that prohibitions against causing unnecessary suffering are an integral part of the laws governing kosher slaughter, the report argued that the Torah itself did not mandate a particular method for killing animals.

Is this true? And will this spell trouble for Britain’s Jewish community, or will parliament uphold principles of religious freedom?